Once in the park, we headed straight for the Great Movie Ride. Located inside Grauman's Chinese Theater, you guide walks you through all the great movies. Riders travel through set after set after beautiful set, and experience the magical, the historical, and the creepy first hand.
Next we headed across Echo Lake to the sci-fi section. Stunt men and women walk you through a sampling of stunts and set pieces from the Indiana Jones films in the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular. In true Disney fashion, the performance started out with a massive set that replicated the famous rolling bolder scene and then broke apart into 3 pieces to reveal an even more elaborate set beyond. Next we hopped on a transport with C3P0 and R2D2 to help run a mission to defeat the Empire in Star Tours. After, Tatooine Traders was a must, where you can build your own droid or lightsaber. We refrained, but only after some serious consideration!
Continuing to the back of the park, we stopped by Muppets 3D. Statler and Waldorf heckled the cast as they presented their Muppet Magical Extravaganza. The usual clever Muppet humor was in full force during the show and they a great job mixing the on-screen effects with physical effects in the theater (such as smoke, projectors making it look like parts of the wall were falling away, and characters popping up on the balconies). Traveling through the gift shop after the show, much time and effort was put into the gifts that we would be bringing back to our recently-married, Muppet-loving friends the Gaspers.
While in Muppet Plaza, the call went out that a show called Lights, Motors, Action! was about to start next door. This show was new since the last time I had come, so it was a fun new experience for both Nate and I. We filed into stadium seating overlooking a huge movie set styled to look like a quaint European town. Before long the silence was interrupted by a red car zooming around the set getting chased by several black cars. I couldn't believe all of the things that they could do with these stunt cars! Backwards, forwards, reversals at high speeds and barely missing the scenery and props, it was clear that these guys really knew both their cars and their craft. Stunts included cars, trucks, motorcycles and jet skis, as well as dangerous personal stunts. Between stunts a production crew explained the technical aspects of the last scene including some of the clever tricks the drivers use to make their stunts work. I'm not generally a car fan, but the perfectly timed stunts kept me riveted all the way through. And we kept thinking how much Alister Bell would have enjoyed the whole thing! The photo below is one that Nate took (notice the red car in the middle of the two trucks.)
They had another new experience called The Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow, which was in the testing phase and didn't have fast-passes yet. In order to take part, you would be given a card with a specific time on it and were asked to come back then to take part. Our time was about 40 minutes away, so we wandered into Walk Disney: One Man's Dream, a museum like biography of Disney and timeline of how Disney came to be. We were fascinated, and came back there even after Jack Sparrow (during which we were sworn in as pirate crew, but little else happened). Disney's original plans for Disney World were especially interesting. He wanted to build a city that would promote innovation and attempt a new way of sustaining an intentional community. This plan was called Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow, or Epcot for short. In the end Disney passed away and his ambitious plan turned into a new park with the same name. You can still see traces of that original plan in parts of Epcot.
I was really sad to find that the Backlot Tour was closed for maintenance. Actually, that and the Great Movie Ride were the ones that I had gotten really excited about with Nate that morning, so he was bummed too. We grabbed some dinner, settled in for a live performance of Beauty and the Beast (highlights), and then explored The Magic of Disney Animation. There was an animation studio where one of the animators would teach you how to draw a mystery character, and you had to guess as you were going what it was. This was much too much for our curiosity, and we had to stay and draw. Turned out to be Alien from Toy Story, which we both reproduced quite well if we do say so ourselves.
This put us a little behind to get into the theater for Fantasmic, the evening show. We ended up a bit around the side, but there really isn't a bad seat in the entirety of Disney parks. And the show did not disappoint! Based around Mickey's Fantasia, the creators combined water projections, pyrotechnics, stunts and some Disney magic to awe and amaze the audience. We loved every minute!
After the show we followed the crowd back to the bus, stopping in a few stores along the way to check out their shirt selection. The next day we would go to Magic Kingdom and get our photo with Mickey. We were thinking that this would probably be our Christmas photo, which makes me laugh now. Its amazing how much has changed in the last 7 months. It's fun to think while we were busy enjoying Disney World, our baby was just getting his start.
Phew, one more to go!
-J & N
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